Re: Staff verification: Governor Abubakar apologises to workers over hardship

This piece is a response to a report in Daily Trust of Tuesday, June 20th, 2016 titled, “Staff verification: Governor Abubakar apologises to workers over hardship”, in which Bauchi State governor Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar was quoted apologising to workers over the avoidable hardship his administration subjected them through endless stream of verification exercises. The apology […]

This piece is a response to a report in Daily Trust of Tuesday, June 20th, 2016 titled, “Staff verification: Governor Abubakar apologises to workers over hardship”, in which Bauchi State governor Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar was quoted apologising to workers over the avoidable hardship his administration subjected them through endless stream of verification exercises.
The apology though belated, was a departure from his usual self-nonchalant, authoritarian and supercilious. It is therefore a good step in a right direction. I congratulate the governor for this deed; at last, he has owned up to the reality of the tragedies that became of his infamous verification of workers.
A sad reminder of the incidences recorded during the exercise will not be out place. First, it was the news report widely carried by newspapers across Nigeria, of the “collapse” and subsequent “death” of two pregnant teachers on verification queue. Second, is the Punch newspaper report on 13th May, 2016 which quoted the Chairman, Nigerian Union of Pensioners, Bauchi State chapter, Alhaji Abu Gar to have said that 20 pensioners have died while undergoing the verification exercise of pensioners in the state. Similarly, the BBC Hausa service reported the workers’ march to Bauchi Government House. The workers were protesting against the nonpayment of their salaries after been verified.
Although I openly supported the verification exercise at the initial stage, I withdrew my support the moment I observed that it was more or less a futile one, as the people responsible for infesting the state’s civil service with the so called “ghost workers” were the same people the government saddled with the responsibility of verifying them. The organization of the exercise was as poor as the motive it set to achieve. The government was simply not serious about it.
Musa Azare, Abuja.